I doubt they have deepened: politics have always been a dirty nasty business, and we’ve actually seen much more violence in the past over political issues. Heck, we’ve seen formalized duels between politicians, including a sitting Vice President. It’s just that with the rise of the Internet and 24 hour cable news we see more of the partisan strife.

Fred does point out that there is more partisan strife than just with guns: also abortion, immigration and simple legislation. Then we get

The encouraging news, if there is any, is that these patterns aren’t as immutable as they were, say, with the division between slave and free states before the Civil War. Populations shift over time, attitudes change, political parties evolve. The migration of foreign-born families into the heartland, for example, may help make immigration reform more achievable than it would be if immigrants were clustered only in traditional coastal cities. And, as Third Way’s Matt Bennett pointed out to me, polls show voters often are more moderate than their politicians, even in deep blue or bright red states.

Obviously, he’s comparing Red states to slave states, forgetting that the slave states were pretty much Democrat Party states. Confederacy president Jefferson Davis was…..a Democrat. Democrats institutionalized bigotry and racism in their party platforms, as well as being pro-slavery. They created the KKK. They opposed Civil Rights legislation. Heck, they now want “slavery” to the government. The Democrat party died out quite a bit on the old Confederacy states because of their racism and bigotry, allowing the Republican Party to become the leading party.

But, you want your Constitutionally guaranteed rights (and might oppose abortion on demand and giving illegal aliens, otherwise known as people who violated our national sovereignty and laws, amnesty) you’re almost as bad as being a slave holder.

The LA Times attempts something similar in regards to a schism (without the slave/non-slave states), failing to note that the gun laws were passed on mostly party lines, in a legislature with huge Democrat majorities. Oh, and that they already have draconian gun laws, but still have gun violence. And, yes, one of the laws they were trying to pass would grab guns.